


the trolls on the bus go "fuck this planet" all through the town

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, also slightly au bc vriska is alive n shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a group of six trolls get lost</p>
            </blockquote>





	the trolls on the bus go "fuck this planet" all through the town

You’ve got to admit, Earth is kind of terrifying and confusing sometimes.

Especially times like right now, when all the cars are out and you’re totally lost and you have no idea what you’re doing.

At least nobody else really knows either. You’ve only been here for like five days, so it’s not like you’ve had time to get used to the culture, let alone learn your way around town. Earlier you and some of your friends went out as a group to try to change that. Now the six of you are sort of just standing there.

Kanaya got the bright idea to try to take a bus back to the neighborhood where you all ended up living. She’s currently trying to decipher a map to see if she’s right. You think she probably is.

Vriska and Terezi don’t. They’re arguing pretty loudly about what would be the best thing to do, but they’re not coming up with much of anything. Actually, pretty much their only ideas are 1: scaring/manipulating some humans into taking them home and 2: wander around until they get there or an answer presents itself. (Either of those would probably work, come to think of it, but your heart is screaming that you’ve just gotta take a bus.)

That leaves your best friend grumbling next to you, you trying to comfort him like a good palebro, and Damara failing at holding in her laughter at the whole thing. (Nobody really understands how alternate universe not-Aradia even got here, but whatever. You just chalk it up to motherfucking miracles.)

It goes like that for about ten minutes actually, before Karkat decides to address Kanaya. “Hey, when is this bus supposed to come take us off anyway?”

She checks a piece of paper tacked to the bus stop, then the watch resting on the inside of her wrist. “In about ten minutes, assuming it’s on time.” Clearly she doubts it, but you’ve got faith.

Three loud groans make you jump.

“FUCK. THAT.”

“Yeah, Karkat has a point!”

“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day Karkat and Terezi agree.”

“Oh my god nobody wants to hear that shit right now. Let’s just find a way home.”

Karkat groans again, but before the argument goes much further you notice something huge and green making its way over to you.

Well, that would be the bus, then.

“Aw, see guys, it’s ten minutes early, look!” You point at the slowing vehicle with a grin and it stops right in front of the bench. You’re the first one on board in your excitement. Damara and Vriska follow suit before the driver stops you.

For a long time he just stares at you, and you stare back. It takes you a few minutes to remember that to these weird aliens, you’re the weird aliens. “Uh, you gotta pay the fare,” he finally says, nodding toward a glass box full of coins that you didn’t notice before.

Aaaahhh shit.

“Sorry bro, I don’t even know what that is.” You start digging through your pants pockets anyway though. Maybe you’ve got something that he’ll want.

“No fare, no ride,” he says. He looks like he’s trying to be stern, but his voice is a bit shaky and he won’t stop staring at your horns. You keep looking for stuff anyway.

You feel movement behind you, someone brushing past your legs, and then Damara has her arm around you. She leans toward the bus driver and says something in that silly accent of hers. It’s kind of confusing trying to figure that shit out. But then she lifts two fingers to her mouth and starts to flick her tongue in between them, and you think you’ve got an idea of what she said.

Her antics cause the driver to push you back and quite literally kick you both out. It looks like he’s trying to make a quick exit, but it takes a good minute before he can find an opening in the line of traffic.

Karkat lets out a dramatic sigh and turns back to Kanaya. “Well? That didn’t work. What now?”

“Of course it didn’t work, it was the wrong bus,” she says, as if it should be obvious. “The college nearby has a free bus route open to the public. That’s the one we need.”

Your best friend nods in acceptance, and the group falls silent again.

Wait.

The group is silent.

You look around at them again to see what caused the change in volume, and you notice something off.

“Hey, whoa, where did Vriska go?”

Karkat sighs again and Terezi starts cackling before she answers. “She snuck on the bus. And it was the wrong one, so she’ll probably get lost! Serves the bitch right.”

Karkat and Kanaya seem to sympathize with Terezi. You doubt Damara gives a fuck. Your mind is just kind of blown by this plot twist.

As silence falls on the group again, you start to look around at all the cars. All these motherfucking cars. You wonder how they don’t just crash into each other all the time. Well, at the moment they’re going pretty slow, so that might be part of it, but what about the rest of the time? You wonder how they even know where the fuck they’re going because this city is just so huge. Earth is huge. It’s huge and nobody understands.

It’s a fucking miracle. And you’re pretty sure it fits inside of that frog you guys made in that game that you never learned the name of.

Whoa.

One of the cars stands out to you and interrupts your musing. Well, of course it does, it’s bright bright yellow with a sign on top declaring that it’s a taxi. You kind of wish you knew what a taxi was.

You’re not the only one to notice it. “Hey, doesn’t that banana car over there give out rides too?” You see Terezi pointing in the same direction that you had been looking, though her finger aims slightly above the top of the car.

The traffic is slow enough that the car doesn’t move too far before everyone spots it. Karkat is the first to react.

“Five of us are not going to fit in that legendary piece of shit.”

“Okay, then two or three of us can go and the others can go look for Vriska.”

Everyone turns to stare at you then. They look mildly surprised that you came up with something that didn’t occur to them. Or maybe they did all think of it and decided they didn’t want to consider it, and they’re surprised you are.

Terezi finally speaks up. “She’ll find her way back home. She’s on her own now, we should just concentrate on getting ourselves home.”

“No, maybe Gamzee has a point,” Kanaya says. Everyone looks generally shocked again. “If we abandon Vriska knowing that she’s going to get lost even more than we are, she’ll probably start looking for revenge.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“Neither does Vriska’s thought process.”

A loud groan from Karkat interrupts the conversation. “Okay, I don’t care what you guys do, I just want to get home. I’m trying the taxi.”

He actually steps onto the road and starts winding his way through the cars. A few start honking, apparently at him, and it scares the shit out of you if you’re being honest. Kanaya sighs. Terezi pulls a face. You watch in bemusement.

Damara says something about sexual favors and hikes her skirt up.

You all continue to watch Karkat, since you don’t really have any other ideas of what to do.

You can’t really tell what’s going on when he does reach the car, though. He looks like he’s talking to the driver and he looks angry, but you’re not sure if that’s just Karkat being Karkat.

You never quite hear what he’s saying, but after a few minutes of watching his mouth run you do see him hold up two middle fingers before making his way back to you.

None of you need to ask how it went.

Kanaya clears her throat politely. “From the maps up here, it looks like Vriska is headed south. We live north. So…”

You pipe up when nobody else responds. “So let’s find a way south, I guess.”

Nobody objects. You don’t know if they’ve come around to actually agree that finding Vriska is a good idea, or if they just don’t care enough to keep arguing about it. You don’t think you should dwell on it though.

Reluctantly, Kanaya figures out the route the bus with Vriska took and starts to lead the group. With just you five, it’s miserable and silent. Well, you’re not really miserable. You’re just kind of taking everything as it comes. The others kind of just want to go home.

It’s not long before you reach another street corner and a random set of stairs in the middle of the sidewalk. “Hey, hey, what the motherfuck is this shit?” You pull on Karkat’s sleeve to stop him, which causes the rest of the group to stop too.

“How the hell should I know? Dammit, you act like I’m a veritable fountain of information about this grubsucking planet.” He yanks his arm out of your grasp. It fails to ruin your mood.

“Well, I say we should find out! Vriska could be down here.” And with that, you take off down the stairs. You don’t know if anyone is actually following, but you bet they are.

You don’t understand anything at the bottom of the staircase.

Kanaya has the presence of mind to actually read some of the stuff on the walls. “Okay, so this is the subway,” she says, more to herself than any of you. She finds another map and starts comparing it to the information she has memorized. The rest of you watch. You would say you are Very Impressed with the way she manages to stay on top of things.

“So this thing will take us south…but how far south do we need to go? Where would Vriska have gotten off the bus? Oh fuck, I can’t remember…”

“Fuck it, let’s just get on and go with our instincts,” Terezi spits, and she starts to head toward the crowd of people who appear to be waiting. They walk through a set of rotating bar things or fucking something, but she hops over them easily. The rest of you follow suit after a short pause. (Damara, of course, takes the opportunity to flash everyone.) It earns you some stares, but the horns and gray skin have been earning you stares this entire time anyway.

It’s not long before a train arrives. A bunch of people exit, and the rest of you enter. There’s not enough space for all of you to sit down. You and Kanaya let Karkat and Terezi sit. Damara sits right in Karkat’s lap.

“Hey, what the fuck!”

He obviously doesn’t know what to do with his arms, so he holds them above his head. You can’t quite make out what Damara’s saying, but her tone is pretty clear.

Terezi doesn’t look happy with this turn of events. “Leave him alone, Damz. No means no.”

In response, Damara grins and says something about sharing a bonebulge. That’s about when you start to tune out the dirty talk and turn to face a blushing Kanaya. You don’t need to know how your best friend fills his pails, when he does, or with whom he does it.

The rest of the ride goes pretty much like that. You stop paying attention when the train starts moving. It’s a bit hard to stand up. Apparently you’re going pretty fast, and it’s pretty motherfucking fantastic.

Besides that, the whole thing is kind of uneventful. The train stops three times in thirty minutes. After the first stop a few seats opened up, but you decided to keep standing and Damara decided not to leave Karkat’s lap. By this time Kanaya seemed to be pretty entertained by the situation. You think she purposely took the spot next to Karkat to keep him from shoving the girl off of him.

You all decide to get off on the third stop. Karkat looks relieved when Damara finally leaves his lap. So does Terezi. Kanaya looks a bit disappointed that the show is over. Damara probably doesn’t give a fuck.

In a few minutes, you all climb back up above ground. It takes a bit for you all to adjust to the light after the darkness of the subway. But when you do, you see that luck is on your side. A bus stops about a block away and drops off a frazzled-looking Vriska.

When she spots the five of you, her anxiousness dissolves into the smirk you’re more used to seeing her wear.

It’s not exactly a warm reunion since three of you hate this chick and two of you simply don’t care, but everyone is relieved all the same. Now you can all get home.

Assuming you can figure out where the fuck you all are.


End file.
